The Return of Radiohead

Radiohead has been busy. After months of coy hints and social media teases, the band has confirmed that they will be releasing a new album, but, being Radiohead, there always has to be a twist. Announced on Friday morning, May 6th, 2016, the album will be officially released in two days, on Sunday May 8th at 2 pm. This announcement still comes with some holes as the album title hasn’t even been released yet! Flying blind, Radiohead fans will just have to satisfy their time with listening to some new songs, watching the new video, and attempting to piece together the clues left behind as they count down the hours for the new album to be released.

As previously mentioned, the band did not simply release a statement saying that they were going to be releasing a new album in only a matter days, oh no, they did it in style. Style being that the band released two new singles and an accompanying music video to the second single in which they revealed that a new album was on the not-so-distant horizon. The new song, called “Daydreaming” along with its music video, were both released early in the morning on Friday, May 6th, presenting fans with their first taste of some new material since the release of their last album, The King of Limbs in 2012, after which they took a hiatus from which they are finally returning. Their first single, “Burn the Witch”, was exclusively sent out to those who had previously purchased music and merchandise from the band before, making its release relatively secret. Besides these two tracks, nothing more has been released or discussed about the album, with its impending release leaving a lack of time for any true information of consequence to leak.

For a band like Radiohead surprise releases and unconventional announcements are their niche. With each of their previous albums, the band has attempted to find new and creative ways to drop their albums – coining the idea way before it became a mainstream process. Case in point, this announcement comes after the band completely erased themselves from social media for a couple days. Fans were anticipating something big when the band completely wiped out their social media accounts and replaced their pictures with blank images. Likewise they not only deleted all the content from their social media pages, but also their band website as well. This all occurred just days before the release of “Burn the Witch”, followed by “Daydreaming” and then the album announcement. Always looking for a new way to incite excitement within their ever loyal fan base, the band have become masters of surprise. Doing it all, Radiohead sets the bar high for all other bands looking for the chance to make waves through the release of spontaneous content in any genre. So for all you Radiohead fans holding out with anxious breath for the new album, the wait is almost over, and on Sunday you will finally be able to breathe normally again.